


Do You Even Know That I'm Here?

by bibesties



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, thinkstarbucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2722457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibesties/pseuds/bibesties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is a ghost.<br/>No, he doesn't know how it happened and no, he doesn't know what to do about it.<br/>What he does know, however, is that he's found himself in the perfect position to follow this cute, skinny guy called Steve without being noticed. Hopefully.</p><p>Bucky/Steve, ghost Bucky au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do You Even Know That I'm Here?

**Author's Note:**

> A completed reply to this prompt: what about a ghost au where bucky is a ghost that falls for steve and keeps haunting him in the hope that he'll notice him and catch his attention
> 
> (prompt from my now deleted writing prompt blog: thinkstarbucks)
> 
> By the way, I wrote this fic with the idea of it being set in the 1940s, but it also works set in modern day I suppose, however you wish to interpret it really.
> 
> Title taken from the song 'Ghost' by Little Boots.  
> Copied directly from tumblr so all mistakes are mine, and I also don't own any of these characters.

“C’mon you little punk, I’m _right here_ ,”

Bucky sighs to himself, the noise barely hanging in the air for a second after it passes through his lips. He’s gotten kind of used to it after these last few weeks, being a ghost or an undead semi-transparent entity or whatever the hell he is, but it doesn’t stop it from just being plain weird sometimes.

He often feels like he’s stopped making an impact on the world: his body gliding through solid objects and his words often sounding like he’d just spoken them in his head, no echoes, nothing. The most noise he ever makes is when he thinks he’s about to trip over something and instead falls right through it, landing on the ground noiselessly except from a tiny gasp that sometimes he thinks a passer-by might have heard.

But they probably just interpret it as a breeze, a noise of an animal or a piece of trash rolling around in the wind. Understandable, really, Bucky thinks; who’s going to jump to the conclusion that they just heard a damn ghost fall over next to them while they’re walking to work?

Brooklyn was boring during life and it’s only become even duller during death. Even though he’s glad he didn’t have to disappear from the world straight away, Bucky’s starting to think that he’d rather the unknown to having to prowl the streets every day when he can’t even steal a newspaper from the stall or a smile from a passing woman.

Though it’s not all bad. Not now he’s discovered Steve Rogers.

Steve is this tiny kid who has nimble fingers and even more nimble feet, flitting around almost as unnoticeably as Bucky does. Except when he ends up picking a fight with some guy who towers over him, ending up bruised and bloody on a street corner before Bucky can even work out how the fight started in the first place.

Bucky keeps an eye on him for the rest of the day, just to make sure Steve keeps his nose out of trouble and looks after himself. That’s how it started – Bucky saw him staggering out of some back alley with blood in his mouth a couple of weeks back and since then he’s taken to following him around, watching over him even though he can’t do much to help.

Steve wakes up, wolfs down two bowls of cereal, gets washed and dressed and heads out of the cramped flat in which he lives. He sits on benches and doodles, buys magazines with names that Bucky’s never heard of and has a fondness for bright green bon bons that he gets from the sweet shop at the end of the high street. Sometimes he does odd jobs for people: helps out at the greengrocers or makes a window display for the post office, but he doesn’t seem to have a steady job. Bucky knows this because he’s sort of been camping out on Steve’s floor.

He felt weird about it at first, staying in some stranger’s house without permission, without the guy even knowing he exists (or partly exists, he supposes). But it’s a nice enough flat and Steve’s the most interesting guy he’s even laid eyes on, and it’s a hell of a lot better than falling asleep against some steps out of exhaustion, questioning _how_ he can even fall asleep and then waking up to the shivery feeling of someone stepping right through him.

So that’s who he is now. A half-undead guy who returned to the world for no reason in particular, living with some guy he’s never met and will never properly meet.

A half-undead guy who’s standing near Steve as he curls up tighter in his worn armchair and narrows his eyes as he reads an article in the local newspaper.

Sometimes Bucky feels like Steve is sparing glances at him when he’s not looking, like he almost meets his gaze sometimes, but he knows it’s just some weird mixture of paranoia and hope.

Either way, it’s not stopped him from chatting to Steve on a daily basis, even if it’s more like talking to himself.

“So, whatcha readin’ about today, Stevie, huh?” Bucky leans over his shoulder and lets out a chuckle that seems to stay in his throat. “’Local Cat Rescued From Drainpipe’,” he reads, and then shakes his head, leaning his arms against the top of the armchair as he watches Steve. “That’s what’s makin’ you frown at the front page so intently? You care too much, kid.”

Steve continues reading, eyes moving from line to line, looking undisturbed by the presence chatting away beside him. He turns the page and rubs his nose, sniffing a little. Bucky frowns in concern.

“You better not be getting’ another damn cold,” Bucky complains, now wandering around the room leisurely. “I told you the other day – you run off to the post office without a coat and you’ll catch your death, I said. And now look at you, sniffling into your sleeve.”

Bucky pads around the room in his heavy boots – the boots he’d been wearing when he died that are the only ones he has now – eyes roving over the pictures on the wall and the damp marks in the ceiling. “This place ain’t doin’ a lick of good for your health,” he muses aloud, glancing at Steve, who’s continuing to read obliviously.

He decides to give up talking for a while and settles down on the floor near Steve’s feet. For some reason, flooring stays solid beneath him a lot easier than chairs and armrests and whatever else he tries to sit on. He looks up at Steve, watching him fiddle with the corner of the newspaper, and he exhales slowly.

Okay, so he might be hanging around Steve because of more than just vague interest and shelter.

But damn it all if Steve isn’t the most handsome guy he’s ever seen. He’s exactly his age, he’s seen the birthday marked on the calendar in Steve’s tiny kitchen, which makes him wonder how many times he’d walked past him in the street during his life.

He’s got this soft looking blond hair (not like Bucky’s been able to feel it) and brilliant blue eyes, and these delicate hands that take care of everything he touches, and though he’s a skinny little thing who looks like he could use a good couple of roast dinners, Bucky can’t take his eyes off him for more than a minute.

“If I had your talent I’d just spend all day drawin’ your eyes,” Bucky thinks aloud, seeing that Steve is now scribbling in the margins of the newspaper with one of the many pencils he leaves all over his apartment. Bucky has nothing to hide and nobody to hear him, so he finds he spends a lot of his time just mooning over the beautiful blond guy in front of him.

“I wish you’d look at me. Really look at me.” Bucky whispers to himself, feeling the words disappear into the air as soon as they’ve tumbled out of his mouth. Although his words always seem to sound clearer around Steve, probably because of the deep emotion within them or some crap like that.

As well as reminding himself of how sweet he is on Steve he also spends a good amount of his time willing him to see him properly.

“This is bullshit, it’s so damn unfair,” Bucky is now complaining, getting up and pacing around, voice heavy with despair as it always is when he’s reminded of how he’s not sure if he’s even real or not anymore. “I’m brought back from the fuckin’ dead, and I discover you with your pretty face and those hands and you’ll never even touch me with ‘em. Not once. Not even an accidental brush past in the street, fuckin’ bullshit,”

Now he’s aiming a kick at the side table, foot sinking right through which only serves to anger him more. He goes to rest his head against the wall like he used to when he needed to calm himself down, and he curses profusely when his whole damn body just sinks right through.

“Who the hell do I go to for help with this? I just know there ain’t no God because he wouldn’t give anyone this much torture to deal with,” he mutters.

Bucky walks around the corner of the cramped kitchen and back into the living room, resolutely avoiding everything in his path that he could possibly sink through. He hates this, hates having to live a half-life, hates not knowing why he’s even still here, if there’s anyone else like him. He hates getting worked up about it every single day.

He runs a hand through his hair, then remembers that at least he can still feel his own body, and that’s gotta be something, right? His hand comes up to curl around his wrist, and then his hands are in fists and he’s hammering them against his chest, reminding himself over and over again that he’s still himself, that he’s still real, in some way.

“Stop, please,”

Bucky’s head is too stuffed up with thoughts for him to register the words at first, to register that they’ve not come from his own lips or mind, but then he does and he freezes.

“What the—fuckin’—what the hell?” Bucky spins around, and then he realises that Steve has been out of his seat for God knows how long. His beautiful blue eyes are looking right at him, gazing right into his own.

“Don’t hurt yourself, okay? I don’t know if… if you actually can or not, but just—just don’t, you don’t have to.” Steve is saying, hands out towards him as though he wants to reach out for him but isn’t sure if it will make things better or worse. Bucky isn’t sure either.

He swallows, hands still curled against his front, but they’re still now. His whole body is still. “Are you dead?”

Steve blinks, looking like he wasn’t expecting that question. There’s the tiniest of smiles on his face.

“No, I don’t think so. But you are?” His last words come out as a question, and Steve looks a little unsure, looks as confused about the whole thing as Bucky is, but he’s putting on a brave face like he always does.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t say how. He doesn’t like remembering it.

“I’m sorry.”

The other guy is saying his condolences even though he can see Bucky right in front of him. Bucky laughs at that, laughs breathlessly but also clearly, and then he realises that Steve can actually hear him too, that he’s been able to hear him before. Christ, how much has he heard?

“How long’ve you been able to see me, huh?” Bucky asks, sounding curter than he’d wanted to, and his expression instantly becomes apologetic.

Steve doesn’t seem to mind. “Since you followed me home that night I got a busted lip.”

“Since the beginning, then. Right.” Bucky replies, scratching the back of his neck as the hairs there seem to prickle in embarrassment. Steve’s heard him pining after him for the last few weeks, _brilliant_. “You’re a good actor. Would never have guessed you’ve been hearin’ my every word,”

“Didn’t want to scare you. Thought it might seem rude to just ask you what you’re doing in my flat when you’ve already gone through enough with dyin’ and everything, you know?”

This guy really is something, Bucky thinks, rolling his eyes. “I wouldn’t’ve minded. Sometimes it gets too much for me to handle, would’ve been nice,” he complains, shutting himself up as soon as he realises how petulant he’s starting to sound.

Steve is smiling to himself as he takes his seat in the armchair again, looking as though he’s decided that he’s not going to have to march up to Bucky and demand him to stop hurting himself. “Well, now you know.”

“Yeah.” Bucky agrees with a smile of his own, although he starts to look awkward again a second later. “And now you, uh, know about… all the things I’ve been sayin’,”

“You’re not that much of a secret admirer,” Steve teases, eyes still glued to him like he’s glad he doesn’t have to avoid looking at him anymore. “I don’t mind.” He adds quickly. “I’d have probably kicked you outta here a lot sooner if I minded.”

Bucky decides that’s a fair point, and he relaxes, arms unfolding and hanging by his sides. “Do you know how it is that you can see me?”

Steve shrugs, licking his lips in thought and Bucky stops his gaze from trailing down to his mouth just a little too late. Luckily, Steve looks like he’s too deep in thought to notice. “I dunno. I’ve been able to do it since my ma died. I saw her still, she spoke to me, helped me out with schoolwork. Then she disappeared after a while. I miss her.”

Steve is looking away now, staring at a spot on the wall behind Bucky. “And my old girlfriend too, I missed her so much when she went, but then she came back. Told me that she’d just come back to life, but not fully. She went too, though, after a while. Said she felt ready to move on, said she knew I’d be able to keep goin’ without her. And I have, even if it’s been hard. Then you came along.”

Steve is smiling at him again now, looking as though there are lots of things hidden in the creases of his lips and Bucky desperately wants to uncover them all. For now, though, he settles on sending a sympathetic smile his way. “Sorry about your ma, and your girl.”

“I’ve made peace with it now, I keep them alive in photos and memories,” Steve replies, gaze flicking to a photo of a pretty woman with a full lipped smile. “’Sides, I’ve got you to look after now.”

Bucky huffs out a laugh, though his insides are squirming happily at the idea of that. Steve looking after him, being there for him, letting him live with him. The other guy lives such a solitary life, Bucky thinks nobody would even notice him talking to some invisible guy over his shoulder. If anything, he’d be good company.

Not really thinking about what he’s doing, Bucky walks over and holds out his hand. “Bucky Barnes.”

Steve tilts his head up at him in interest and puts his hand out too. “Steve Rogers.” He goes to mimic shaking Bucky’s hand, and then their fingers meet and touch, actually touch, and Steve gasps quietly and Bucky is focusing all of his energy on committing the feeling of those warm fingertips to memory.

Bucky pulls his hand away before the moment is gone and his hand can sink right through Steve’s.

“Pleased to meet you, Stevie.”

“The pleasure is mine, Bucky.”

Maybe he’ll hold off going into the unknown for a little bit longer.

**Author's Note:**

>  _"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"_ \- Edgar Allan Poe


End file.
